Chicago officials announced they’d received 2,138 applications to sell beer, and had already approved more than 700 of those requests.

Up in Milwaukee, that city’s Association of Commerce swooned at the idea of legal beer. Brewers and related manufacturers (like glass and barrel makers) were expected to create more than 25,000 new jobs.

The “prospect of legal beer is almost too good to be true," sighed the manager of the Blatz Hotel. But that didn’t stop him from making plans: he’d ordered new steins, lighting fixtures, and palm plants for the hotel’s restaurant. “All we are waiting for," he added, “is legal beer."*

Him and 125 million other Americans.
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*Sources: “Issues 741 Beer Licenses," New York Times, March 16, 1933, p. 20; and various reports in the Milwaukee Sentinel, March 15, 1933.

Maureen Ogle

Website of Maureen Ogle, author and historian. Books include Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer, In Meat We Trust: An Unexpected History of Carnivore America, and Key West: History of An Island of Dreams.